Atlantic League undergoes transition away from 'rock star' managers

It used to be managers in the Atlantic League carried more cachet than the clubs they managed. When a new team arrived in town, fans may not know anything about the team except the name of the manager. Most nights, the old guys on the dugout steps would be the most recognizable name in the stadium.

They were rock stars.

Bridgeport's Tommy John walked through the training facilities in Lakeland, Fla., and pitchers from other teams would introduce themselves. They couldn't help it. They wanted to meet the man who had -- in a way -- helped prolong their careers. They had undergone the surgery named after John and now they were able to shake his hand.

Newark's Tim Raines would linger along the front-row wall at Sovereign Bank Stadium talking to anyone who had bought a ticket, signing autographs long after all his players had reached the clubhouse. Perhaps the second-best leadoff man in baseball during the last 30 years, Raines always had plenty of company after games.

Somerset seemed to market manager Sparky Lyle as the face of the franchise, going so far as to name a mascot after him. The man remained a character, fun-loving and ultra-competitive -- even as he approached 70.

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And now -- following this week's announcement that Lyle had stepped aside in Somerset -- most of the rock stars are gone. The league has a few managers with big-name credentials. Bridgeport still has Willie Upshaw and Lancaster still has Butch Hobson, they are both longtime managers in the league who enjoyed a combined 18 years playing in the big leagues. But the days when big-name managers lorded over the dugouts seems to be in the over.

"I don't think (hiring younger managers) is a strategy or a trend," said Opening Day Partners president Jon Danos, a high-ranking member of the ownership group for York, Lancaster, Southern Maryland and Sugar Land.

But the league has changed, and that's just one of the reasons why fewer big-name hires have been made to lead clubs.

"As the league continues to grow ... our expectations and job descriptions have evolved," Danos said. "The league is much more visible now, and the quality of play has evolved for the better. So the job description (for a manager) has changed. The best models seem to be a manager who can also put a team together. There seems to be a correlation with putting the team together and winning."

The Atlantic League in 2013 doesn't resemble the fledgling league started in 1998. The league no longer needs a big-name -- a retired player in the dugout -- to establish its legitimacy. That wasn't always the case.

"If you've got a guy that famous coming to be the manager, you think, 'This is going to work,'" former Somerset County administrator Dick Williams told the Courier News this week about the importance of Lyle joining the Patriots in the 1990s. "(Approving the team) was a big risk. But it turned out well."

Now York has Mark Mason, 51; Long Island has Kevin Baez, 45; Somerset has Brett Jodie, 35; and Southern Maryland has Patrick Osborn, 31. The four men combined to appear in 71 major league games. (Mason and Osborn didn't reach the big leagues.) Not one is a household name.

Behind-the-scenes work paved the way for a younger generation to take over as managers.

Jodie had been finding and signing players for six seasons, working as Somerset's pitching coach and team builder. Mason had a similar role in York, working as the pitching coach but also working the phones to land players throughout the year. Both men have been promoted after their clubs' respective managers decided to move on -- with York's Andy Etchebarren accepting an advisory role and Somerset's Lyle moving into a manager emeritus role with the Patriots.

For the Ducks, hiring Baez -- a Brooklyn native -- seemed like a sensible progression for the franchise.

"Kevin was with us as a player and with us as a coach," Long Island Ducks CEO Frank Boulton said. "He went to coach with the Mets, but he decided he wanted to come home. We felt (the managerial opening) was Kevin's job to lose, and we interviewed a lot of people.

"All he did in his first season was go out and win more games (78) than any other team."

By the end of his second season, the Ducks -- with Baez at the helm -- won a league championship.

The move to hire Osborn before the 2011 may have seemed odd for outsiders, but not the Blue Crabs ownership group -- Opening Day Partners. Danos said ODP recognized they had a player with managerial aspirations, and someone who had worked as a protg under Hobson. Even if he was young, Osborn was ready.

Danos did point out, finding the most-qualified candidate remains the goal. It just so happened that the Blue Crabs and Revolution went with in-house hires because ODP believed they already had the best candidates on their staffs.

Boulton -- the league's founder and CEO -- doesn't see the influx of younger managers as a trend. He believes teams will continue to hire big-name managers. The increase in younger skippers could simply be the result of the league growing and continuing to work like a good business should.

"I think the league has matured over 15 years," Boulton said. "We get to see people, you see them work and you say this guy deserves a shot. That's exactly the way we felt with Kevin.

"I think it's the way every good business rewards employees for being good employees. ... They've earned the opportunity to be successful."